Brian Donarski

After a productive year on fellowship from the Center of Eighteenth-Century Studies, I am happy to be back in the classroom teaching a talented group of G100 students. Over the summer I made significant progress on my dissertation, and my article “Fictive Pouting: Moralistic Suicide and Werther-Emulation in Eighteenth-Century German Literature” was accepted for publication by German Studies Review. It is scheduled to be published in the October 2024 issue. This semester, besides teaching, I am continuing work on my dissertation as well as translating several plays and prose works by J.M.R. Lenz into English. My partner, IU Germanic Studies alum Maggie Kline, continues to enjoy her work as a clinical pharmacist at IU Health. Below is a picture of me, her, and my beautiful cat Hanno posing for a family picture and another of him being cute on the kitchen floor.

Isaac Leichty

Teresa Kovacs invited one of her students, Isaac Leichty, to join the Austrian Studies Association Conference in Easton, PA in Spring 2023.

In the spring semester I had the amazing opportunity to be the first undergraduate student invited to present at the Austrian Studies Association’s annual conference. With the sponsorship of the Germanic Studies department and as part of Prof. Teresa Kovacs’ class “Counter-Archive Austria,” I traveled to Lafayette College in Easton, PA and presented a poster on a class project I had taken a part in over the course of the semester. The project centered around examining less commonly explored perspectives in Austrian history through a multimedia approach. Using films and books the class, split up into four groups, we presented and reflected upon histories of minorities in Austria: Jewish, Black, Sinti and Romani, and LGBTQ+ Austrians. As a member of the group that focused on the experiences of Black Austrians, I read Das Blaue Mal by Hugo Bettauer and watched Angelo by Markus Schleinzer. In the poster presentation, I provided an overview of the project, its methods, scope, and goals – namely, to provide pedagogical resources to North American educators who want to provide their students with a more diverse and complete view of Austrian history. I also explored the specific methods of analysis and approaches that my group engaged. Both poster and project received positive reviews, and many conference-goers were excited to see the final product.

For those interested, read more here.

Rachel Lulich

I am a Germanic Studies MAT student and started the program in Fall 2021. After two full time semesters, I decided to take the 2022-2023 school year off when I found out my first novel for young readers had been accepted for publication. I used the time to focus on edits and other preparations for the book’s release date on September 19, 2023—including organizing several author events, a marketing “street team,” and a trip to the publishers in North Carolina to sign pre-order copies. I still have some events ahead of me, but the book launch was a success, and the story is getting very positive reactions, so the time off was definitely worth it!

In the meantime, I’m back in classes this year, albeit part time. I began this program with a focus on pedagogy and plans to become a part time teacher or tutor while continuing to pursue creative writing. That goal has shifted; I am now focused on the literature side of philology, both for the sheer enjoyment of reading medieval literature and learning the old Germanic languages it was written in, and for the hope that I may find ways to incorporate what I’m learning into my own future works. Visit rachellulich.com to learn more.

Cynthia Shin

Highlight of my summer was attending DEFA Film Library’s Summer Film Institute on Blackness and Black experiences in East Germany. UMass Amherst was beautiful, and I learned a great deal. I also met two alums, Faye Stewart and Muriel Cormican, who were both amazingly fun and inspiring. The photo is from our tour to the Emily Dickinson Museum. I’m looking forward to meeting them again at WiG and NeMLA! I am grateful that Ben Robinson introduced me to the wonders of DEFA film, and that our department’s E. O. Wooley Award funded this opportunity.

Claire Woodward

I am happily sitting on a mostly finished dissertation about reactions to suffering in twentieth century(ish) German narratives. In the past year, I presented portions of this dissertation in the department thanks to a generous summer research fellowship, at the German Studies Association in Montreal (where fellow graduate students Kathy Pollock and Elijah Peters also presented), in both the German and Jewish Studies graduate student organized conferences last February, and a poster at The Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities Spring Symposium (whew, I’m exhausted just reading through all that). In addition to my dissertation work, I crossed off a bucket-list item of publishing a paper with my brother, who recently finished his PhD in Neuroscience and Psychology at IU. This article, “Of Mice and Meaning: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Interconnectedness of Pain, Stress, and Suffering,” is forthcoming. I’ve also continued to be involved with Fritz Breithaupt’s Experimental Humanities Lab with ongoing projects focused on spontaneous side-taking in narratives, influences on character fascination, and the effects of foreshadowing in story processing.